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I agree with almost everything you've said here except I would like to add that kids know how to get around their parents. When I was in high school there were unsupervised parties somewhere about every weekend and if they weren't at a house where the parents were out of town, they were down by the river somewhere. This stuff happens a lot, girl gets drunk, passes out, and gets taken advantage of. the big difference is this was a group and not just some pervert alone with her in a room. I still don't get how someone didn't say hey wait a minute this isn't right, you need to stop. Unless it was the same mentality that gets people to draw penis pics with perm marker on a drunks face and laugh about it? BTW, I'm not comparing sex(rape) with markers but the kids may hold no difference, I don't know.

You say that kids can get around their parents, but that is the parents' fault. You can't tell me that any parent that was paying any attention would be unaware that their child was getting falling down drunk unless the parents are drunks themselves. Alcohol stinks and so does puke. Hangovers have some pretty obvious symptoms. Although I really hate the "it takes a village" philosophy on the grounds that it seems to sort of pass the buck, when I was a teenager in a town of about 45,000, it seemed that I couldn't do anything without it getting back to my mom, so I pretty much walked the straight and narrow. Steubenville is only about eighteen and a half thousand. You can't tell me that folks don't know what's going on. What kind of people let sixteen and seventeen year olds just run loose? I still remember being at a party at a friend's house when at the beginning Mr. Quintana (the hostess's dad) gathered all the boys and, shall we say, explained things. He was a big, serious looking fellow, and believe me, there was no bad behavior there, or for that matter anywhere it might get back to him. We still had fun.

And, Ken is right. Alcohol can certainly reduce one's ability to make good decisions, but once everyone sobered up, bragging about the bad behavior really shows the characters of those boys and their "posse". Shutting down sports for a year and firing the coach are really good ideas.

Last edited by HPL; 03-18-2013 at 04:21 PM.

Any doctrine that weakens personal responsibility for judgment and for action helps create the attitudes that welcome and support the totalitarian state.
(John Dewey)

Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company.
(George Washington)

You say that kids can get around their parents, but that is the parent's fault. You can't tell me that any parent that was paying any attention would be unaware that their child was getting falling down drunk unless the parents are drunks themselves. Alcohol stinks and so does puke. Hangovers have some pretty obvious symptoms. Although I really hate the "it takes a village" philosophy on the grounds that it seems to sort of pass the buck, when I was a teenager in a town of about 45,000, it seemed that I couldn't do anything without it getting back to my mom, so I pretty much walked the straight and narrow. Steubenville is only about eighteen and a half thousand. You can't tell me that folks don't know what's going on. What kind of people let sixteen and seventeen year olds just run loose? I still remember being at a party at a friend's house when at the beginning Mr. Quintana (the hostesses dad) gathered all the boys and, shall we say, explained things. He was a big, serious looking fellow, and believe me, there was no bad behavior there, or for that matter anywhere it might get back to him. We still had fun.

And, Ken is right. Alcohol can certainly reduce one's ability to make good decisions, but once everyone sobered up, bragging about the bad behavior really shows the characters of those boys and their "posse". Shutting down sports for a year and firing the coach are really good ideas.

This reminded me of the one time I skirted the rules and got busted - my parents waited for me to come and then they kept me up having casual conversation, etc...God my head hurt and all I wanted to do was sleep, but no, they played it all casual like and made me pay for it....eventually they let me sleep but I was woken at the crack of dawn to do various extra chores which consisted on mostly manual labor! Man I miss my parents...as much as I use to whine about how tough they were on me, I think they did pretty good and sure wished more parents would be like they were - tough, but fair!

This reminded me of the one time I skirted the rules and got busted - my parents waited for me to come and then they kept me up having casual conversation, etc...God my head hurt and all I wanted to do was sleep, but no, they played it all casual like and made me pay for it....eventually they let me sleep but I was woken at the crack of dawn to do various extra chores which consisted on mostly manual labor! Man I miss my parents...as much as I use to whine about how tough they were on me, I think they did pretty good and sure wished more parents would be like they were - tough, but fair!

Reminds me of a male cousin who came home drunk as a young man ( young enough to be still living at home but not like it is now ). Probably he had just gotten out of high school. He had trouble getting up the stairs to his bedroom. His dad watched him but never said a word to him. Next morning very early his dad said today we need to clean the chicken house. Oklahoma, hot Summer time, hung over and cleaning a chicken house made a big impression on my cousin. His dad never mentioned the drinking at all nor the stair climbing. vbeg

charly

"To become competent in governing others, we must first learn to govern ourselves"
Waite Phillips

Interesting comments - guess it depends on the culture of your time - I see a failure on the part of a lot of adults - these are teenagers who will be stigmatized for the rest of their life, registering as sex offenders. In towns like this where the parents are absent (notice the legal father of one getting his 15 seconds by acknowledging he was not there for his kid) & the demands on public coffers negate any chance for the kids (they don't vote) to have a place to congregate. Kids will do at that age what their hormones drive them to do: fight, drink or fornicate. For most is there anything else?

I see some rationalization, some sensationalism, some femi-nazi but I see no effort to ID the source of the booze. The provider of booze & the girl in question are at fault big time. There seems to be a thought in society that someone stupidly rendering themselves vulnerable is given a pass, & believe it to not be her 1st. Her friends tried to help her but were turned away. She & her absent mother, complete with her feigned outrage, are very responsible in this. Anyone have the thought that one of the boys is black . IMD, girls like this were considered toxic & we avoided them like the plague, they were always more trouble than the quality of favors offered were worth.

If the kids did not have sports what would they have? I would bet that they play in a very nice stadium built with taxpayer funds & heartily supported by the adults for the adult's entertainment. I personally think the boys were railroaded similar to the Duke LaCrosse players & while guilty the whole process has been overdone for political gain. It's not like they were traveling a pathway untraveled previously. JMT

Chances are those parents had a pretty good idea what their kids were doing and thought that at least they were with friends/not driving/at a house party/not roaming the streets/not doing drugs/we all drank in high school blah blah blah.

I'd bet money that the first "layer" of adults to get involved didn't consider it rape, and the next layer of adults figured it was bad enough for a stern lecture and a cover-up. In fact, I'd bet that's what a lot of them are still thinking.

The whole thing is a damn shame. There are really good parents out there; a--I'm lucky to meet a lot of them--but sometimes it seems there are way too many that are ignorant, or exhausted, or being undermined by an ex and not strong enough to win the battle, or fooling themselves so they can avoid doing the messy stuff.

girls like this were considered toxic & we avoided them like the plague, they were always more trouble than the quality of favors offered were worth.

don't worry Marv,
if you were drunk off your ass and about to be raped by a football team, I would step up.
no matter what you type on the internets.

John 8:2-11

English Standard Version (ESV)

2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

"So what is big is not always the Trout nor the Deer but the chance, the being there. And what is full is not necessarily the creel nor the freezer, but the memory." ~ Aldo Leopold

"The Greatest Obstacle to Discovery is not Ignorance -- It is the Illusion of Knowledge" ~ Daniel Boorstin